


Do you remember?

by pixiescanfly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Final Battle, Guilt, Homosexuality, M/M, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon, Regret, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiescanfly/pseuds/pixiescanfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindlewald are about to fight one another for the final time. </p><p>What do you say to the one that you secretly loved all those years ago? Could telling him the truth have changed the path he chose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do you remember?

"Dumbledore."

"My name is Albus, Gellert. Please do me the honour of using it." He said, his voice calm though his emotions were exploding inside him. Seeing Gellert again, here and now, in real life, not in a memory, was almost too much to bear.

"Fine. Albus, you've finally decided to come to me. Are you here to challenge me? I have found the Elder Wand, Albus. One of the Hallows that we searched for together all that time ago. Do you remember Albus?"

He remembered very well, too well. The memories of that time had replayed over and over in his head, plaguing him ever since.

....

_"Look, Gellert! I've found another reference to the Hallows, The Elder Wand this time, come and see." Albus had shouted excitedly to his friend across his small bedroom._

_"What does it say Albus?" Gellert said, scrambling over the bed and coming around behind the other man. He leant down over his shoulder to read the passage that Albus pointed to with his long finger. Albus held his breath, not wanting to take in the smell of his friend, knowing that what little self control he had would break if he did so. He shouldn't be thinking this._

_"I see," Gellert said pensively, not moving from his position at Albus' shoulder, he reached a hand down, around his friend, eagerly turning the page of the book to see if any more information was contained on the next page. Albus was beginning to get light headed. He chanced a breath. Immediately Gellert's overpowering scent attacked his nostrils, his eyes closed, a silent battle raging inside him as Gellert read the page over his shoulder._

......

"I remember Gellert. I see now that we are not fit to be the masters of the Deathly Hallows. If you cannot see that them I am very sorry. Please Gellert. Understand that this is not how it is supposed to be." Albus shouted across the space between them, his emotions beginning to appear from behind his shield.

....

_Albus leant back, pushing Gellert backwards off him, away from the book. Gellert fell onto the floor and looked up at Albus, confusion colouring his features._

_"What did you do that for Albus?" he asked, looking a little hurt. Albus drew in another breath, trying to control himself. He couldn't let himself do what he wanted to. He couldn't stand to lose his friendship with Gellert, the most important person in his life. He bit his lip as the battle continued between what he should do and what he so desperately wanted to do. He wanted Gellert. But that was impossible. Better to have him as a friend than lose him completely. Albus sighed._

_"I'm sorry, Gellert. I didn't mean to. I was just surprised by you turning the page so quickly. You read faster than I do." He said apologetically and offered his friend a hand to stand up before moving the book onto the bed so that they could both read it at once._

....

"We could have been great Albus. You and I could have been the two greatest wizards of the age. You could have had everything you ever desired. And you chose to throw all that away for a little girl." Gellert's eyes were filled with sadness now. It was almost as if he knew exactly what it was that Albus had desired so much for all those years. Almost as if he knew that the power of the Hallows wasn't all that had attracted the other man to the quest.

"We can be great without the Hallows, Gellert. We could still have been the greatest wizards of the age. But it cannot be. Great wizards do not kill for pleasure or revenge as I hear you have been doing Gellert." Gellert looked uncomfortable for a moment and refused to meet his old friend's eye as he spoke.

"We must do what we must Albus. Surely you will understand sacrifice."

"I understand sacrifice better than you know Gellert. But sacrifice is not what you have done. That was murder. You are a murderer Gellert."

"A murderer? A cold blooded killer? Is that really what you think of me Albus? You know me. We were friends once. We could be friends again. You know me better than to think I'm a killer."

"You killed my sister Gellert." Albus's voice was soft but he was sure that the other man heard every word, and remembered every second of that day as he did.

....

_The light was blinding. It threw the three men in the room backwards into walls and tables. Albus recovered first, hauling himself up using a nearby sofa._

_"Gellert? Aberforth? Ariana? Are you alright?" he called out into the smoke._

_"I'm fine Albus," Gellert's voice echoed from the other side of the room, "A bit bruised up but I'll live." The next sound Albus heard was a Bulgarian smoke lifting charm and almost instantly his vision cleared. He wished it hadn't. There on the floor before him lay the corpse of his little sister, innocence plastered all over her face, a look of surprise in her lifeless eyes._

_"Gellert! Gellert!" he called out, sinking to his knees in from of the body, "It's Ariana. She's…we've…" And then Gellert was there, his arms encircling Albus as he sobbed into his friends shoulder. Even the proximity to Gellert couldn't draw Albus's mind away from his sister, his poor innocent dead sister. The sister that he'd killed._

....

"That wasn't me Albus. You know that it was all of us. Blaming me won't help. You know you're as guilty as I am." Gellert spat, turning his eyes back to Albus's.

In seconds Albus's wand was in his hand and the first curse that sprang to his mind was flying towards his old friend. Gellert blocked it, barely, and sent another curse spinning back at Albus.

....

The fight was long and bitter. Each man knew the other almost as well as he knew himself and so could anticipate his moves with almost total accuracy. Finally, after many hours of fighting, Gellert lay at Albus's feet, disarmed and helpless.

....

"Please Albus. Please don't kill me. Remember how it used to be. We were friends Albus. Killing me won't bring her back." Albus knelt down next to his old friend, his enemy.

"You know Gellert. She wouldn't have wanted me to kill you. And I don't want to kill you either. But you're going to be punished. You know that. And I doubt that you'll ever see me again."

Gellert began to sob, quietly, almost silently, but Albus knew him well enough to recognise the sound.

"So before I leave you for the last time, I want to tell you something I should have told you years ago, something that might have stopped you from killing all those people." Albus took a deep breath, about to tell Gellert the one thing he'd been hiding all these years, "I…"

"Albus! Albus! Well done! You've got him! You'll get an Order of Merlin for this for sure," An auror raced onto the scene, conjuring ropes around Gellert as he came. More followed and soon there was a noisy crowd around the defeated wizard. Albus moved away from the group, bent, and retrieved Gellert's wand from its place on the floor.

"I love you," he muttered to the Elder Wand that he now held in his bloody hand. Nobody heard him, but then he didn't expect them to.


End file.
